HORTICULTURE
Mark O’Connell in one of laboratories examining features on a Lanya pear.
Proving profitable produce F
ruit growers in the Goulburn Valley could one day receive better returns for their crops as research continues to examine how to grow commercial produce in the most cost-effective manner. To improve the quality and yield of pears and stone fruit, two research projects are being undertaken at DEDJTR: Profitable Stonefruit and Profitable Pears. The Horticulture Centre of Excellence in Tatura (DEDJTR research facility) is home to the experimental orchards on which all research is based.
growing, especially to Asia, with 13 000 tonnes of stone fruit exported every year, according to a DEDJTR report. Victoria produces 60 per cent of the country’s summerfruit, according to DEDJTR’s Agriculture Victoria. One of the findings from the report was that Indonesian consumers preferred the firm yellow peach much more than the soft variety. Dr O’Connell said fruit behaviour, such as how the fruit performed in storage, was part of the post-harvest research and would help build the “bigger picture”.
Profitable Stonefruit Profitable Stonefruit project leader Mark O’Connell said the research was investigating the steps in the supply chain to deliver uniformity in fruit quality for nectarines, peaches, plums and apricots. “You can manipulate fruit quality by tree training, canopy architecture, crop loads and irrigation management,” Dr O’Connell said. The project research, set on 3 ha of experimental orchards, is running experiments under controlled conditions to examine irrigation, training systems, rootstocks and crop load. The site is all on drip irrigation and the oldest trees are three years old. With labour being the biggest cost on an orchard, every time a fruit was measured and trained it was recorded for economic analysis, Dr O’Connell said. “There’s also a lot of consumer preference work going on internationally and domestically … we are trying to target the Asian market. “We’re looking at what we can manipulate on the farm to get improved consistency and align that with consumer preference.” Export of the Australian stone fruit market is
Profitable Pears Profitable Pears project leader Ian Goodwin said the drought years prompted research into achieving high yields of premium quality pears. “We wanted to look at extreme water management. We looked at parking a tree for one year and leaving it without any water, then adding water to bring it back into production,” Dr Goodwin said. “We were looking at the recovery period and the response time.” Dr Goodwin said the majority of pears — mainly Williams and Packhams — were grown using traditional methods but maximum production could take eight to 10 years and yields could be highly variable. The project aims to halve this production time, investigate how to achieve better yield with more consistent first-rate quality fruit as well as reinvigorate the industry with new varieties of fresh market pears. The past five years had proven difficult for the industry with exports of Packham pears declining, Dr Goodwin said. Experimental orchards were set up five years ago and have three cultivars — Deliza, Lanya and ANP-0534 (no trading name).
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AGFOCUS 2016
Similar to the stone fruit project, the research considers the application of irrigation, planting systems and rootstocks. Irrigation research conducted on the hayna pear concluded that drip irrigation is a viable method for growing pears. “Traditionally, the industry didn’t think you could drip irrigate and you needed flood irrigation and lots of water,” Dr Goodwin said. Drip irrigation could reduce water usage by 30–40 per cent, he said. Pears have been dominated by traditional growing systems, in a vase-shaped canopy with wide spacing, however the planting systems research will determine which other training systems and planting densities will produce high-yielding trees with the best quality fruit. The rootstocks experiment is used on all three cultivars to dwarf the trees and make the pears smaller but more abundant. Economic analysis was also a critical part of the project. The importance of the Asian export market was considered with consumer evaluations taking place in Indonesia and plans to do the same in China and Thailand. In February, a trade delegation from Jakarta visited the research facility and tasted the Deliza and Lanya varieties. “The buyers wanted to know how many containers could be delivered as soon as possible,” Dr Goodwin said. With the Goulburn Valley producing 90 per cent of the pears grown in Australia, Dr Goodwin said research was vital for the industry. “The industry is showing a lot of interest — it would just be good if it could happen quicker,” he said with a laugh.